In the field of business forms and more specifically relating to bank checks or like forms, there has been increased activity to provide fast and accurate processing of the tremendous numbers of such checks flowing daily throughout the banking system. As is well known, the widely used bank check is dated, includes a line for the name of the payee, a rectangular block or like area to contain the amount of the check in numerals, a line to enable the written amount of the check, and a line for the signature of the maker of the check.
While the rectangular block or like area is seen to be a significant advance in the design of a bank check for aid in processing such check, it must be realized that differences in the form and style of the numerical amount requires extensive processing equipment. In the case of encoding equipment, the bank number and the account number of the maker of the check may be in the form to enable machine reading of the numbers. The amount of the check is read therefrom and is then printed on a journal or like tape in order to have a record of the check amount subsequent to the processing operation. It is, therefore, desirable to provide a bank check or like form which is readily accepted by encoding or like reading equipment in the fast and accurate processing of the check.
Representative documentation in the field of bank checks or like forms includes U.S. Pat. No. 4,114,033, issued to A. Okamoto et al. on Sept. 12, 1978, which discloses a bar code information card wherein a plurality of bar codes are recorded in dual directions, one direction being orthogonal to the bar symbol and the other being in the direction in which the bar symbol extends.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,408,121, issued to M. J. Galatha on Oct. 4, 1983, discloses a code format for bank check identification which has marking elements of two distinctive lengths which lie across a set of parallel equal height code zones. The longer of the two lengths exceeds the length of the shorter by twice the height of a code zone.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,430,563, issued to J. A. Harrington on Feb. 7, 1984, discloses a data processing form having darkened areas which establish a row and column format with an elongate edge mark for each row. Some of the darkened areas are to be filled in the user of the form.